


Darth Viscerate

by UnrealRomance



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, If anyone can give me the trope name, Romance, The LI's used to know each other, not sure if it qualifies as a slow-burn, thanks in advance, we'll see, well paced relationship development, what is that called
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23015368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnrealRomance/pseuds/UnrealRomance
Summary: Visceratia has always been a force to be reckoned with. But now that she is the Wrath of the Empire, she is finding it MORE difficult to make the changes to imperial society she wants. How is she supposed to abolish slavery if no one will care how wrong it is?This Revan business should be a good distraction...and perhaps an idea.Theron Shan seems to have reappeared, so she'll definitely find herself distracted. Now all that's left is that idea.
Relationships: Theron Shan/Female Sith Warrior
Kudos: 10





	1. Theron POV

_Small, soft hands cover mine on the laser burn on my arm. "You're hurt!"_

" _I'm fine, it's just a burn," I say in as soothing a way as I can. "It won't even hinder my aiming. Come on, let's find the others."_

" _So what do I call you?" I muttered as we moved through a few hallways in the dark. "Can't just keep saying 'hey you' when I wanna get your attention."_

_She giggled, but went quiet._

_When I glanced back, she looked sad. "I don't have a name anymore. They just call me 'slave' here and they have since I can remember. I think I was five when I was first picked up and taken to a holding facility. Then every few years since then, I get reprocessed…but I still don't know my name."_

_Man, that made me feel like crap for asking._

" _But I remember…" she said quietly, slowly, as we went. "My mother used to call me…'darling'."_

" _There is no way I'm calling you 'darling' in the middle of an escape from a secure facility," I said. "I'm not gonna pick up a cat to pet menacingly or wear an eyepatch, either."_

_Another small giggle. It made all the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Like I could feel her breath there, or something. "Lin? It's part of Darling."_

" _Lin is good," I agree._

_The lights in the hallway are blinking and the sirens are blaring but we run. We run and we don't stop until we hit the shuttle bay._

_Oldest kids are equipped with blaster pistols I only just taught them to use and they use them. Desperation can make for shaky trigger fingers- but the teenagers I was ushering out of that holding facility knew what was awaiting them if they didn't escape._

_Maybe they had terrible aim, but we were close enough to the guards that it didn't matter. Along with the stealth unit I was using- sneaking up around the enemy before they even opened fire and using poison darts to put them to sleep or kill them…_

_Pulling on a small, soft hand- I rush for the transport. "Everybody in, now!"_

_We ran as fast as we could, but we get yanked back at the last second, her and me- because we were too focused on getting all the rest of the kids on the transport._

_I looked up from the ground and I got thrown- and I don't know why or how. I just know something grabbed hold of me and ripped me away from her as she screamed._

Bolting upright in bed and gasping for breath, I let the hazy images fade into the places in my mind where they belong.

I can still remember details of that mission. Not the small ones, of course. The big details, that mattered.

The codes to get in and out. The way the panel of the steering column felt under my clammy sixteen-year-old hands as we took off…leaving someone behind.

I had to get the rest away and there was a Sith. My mission was more important than one girl's life.

No matter how much I'd liked her at the time. How full of light and life she was. And how hopeful she seemed to be at the thought of escape.

It was the first time I ever broke into a holding center and liberated slaves.

It wasn't the last.

Sighing and rubbing my face with my hands, I lurch upright and swing my legs out of bed. Flinching and shuddering at the cold shock of the floor beneath my feet.

That's how I always remember where I am- how my feet feel when I hit the ground after waking up. Cold like this only comes from two places. Space stations and ships with bad heating systems that don't reach the floor and walls- or in this case, underwater in a secret research base on Manaan.

Even on Hoth, they know to warm up the barrack floors to keep everybody from freezing to death in the night. After all, if a chill can reach up through the floor- it can fill the room faster than a heater can chase it away.

Getting up, I stretch and grunt when my joints and spine all choose that moment to pop simultaneously.

Not even into my thirties yet and I already sound like a baby rattle being shaken in the morning.

Slipping into a meditation pose on the floor, I begin going through my exercises.

Meditation can be done while sitting totally still, or while doing Katras of any kind and it's still considered meditating.

But you have to move slow. Stretching your body to its limits, pushing yourself to have enough restraint not to move through the exercises too fast…instant gratification can't be a concern when you're doing this kind of exercise.

Every time a joint pops, I sigh in relief. And pretty soon, my entire body is limber and flexible. Which is half the reason I even do the exercises to begin with.

The other half is to give myself time to wake up and shake off any dreams I may have had in the night that might be hard to forget about.

I don't often dream of that particular night- so I don't know why it's happening now, all of a sudden.

It's this mission, it's got me stressed out. Working with a _sith lord_ to save the Empire- even if I'm also saving the Republic, it's…

Not something I ever thought I'd be doing.

A stray thought enters my mind that maybe the _Sith_ is feeling the same way, but it's brushed off. It doesn't matter how she feels, or how the other Sith she's calling in to help feels about it, either.

We just have to _do_ it. To save everyone.

I just wish it didn't feel so…yeah.


	2. Chapter 2

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that this is how I die.

Trapped in an underwater research facility with an angry Wookie and my poor apprentice who I should've left behind on the ship. I could've brought Pierce or Quinn, but Pierce and I do not see eye-to-eye on many things and after the disastrous end of the relationship between myself and Quinn…

Well, let's say I'm more avoiding awkwardness and rebellion these days by mostly deploying Quinn and Pierce on solo missions and focusing all my efforts on training Jaesa, helping Vette and trying to teach Broonmark restraint.

Bringing Broonmark on missions has the same inherent issues as bringing Pierce so I usually wait until I have a particularly nasty cadre of Sith to kill before I pull him out of his hold. He apparently appreciates the effort I go to, to find him worthy challenges, so he's content with that.

So it was either bring Jaesa, or bring Vette and as much as I do love Vette…she is not quite equipped for this kind of fighting. If I needed an infiltrator, Vette could get in and out of anywhere- but taking her into a heavily fortified and defended research base seemed a terrible idea.

Knowing this place will be my tomb, though- I wish I had brought Quinn with me.

He was the first man I ever loved, and while our love died in flames the day he betrayed me, I do believe in my heart he intended to die that day, not kill me. So I had mercy, but…I could never trust him with my heart, not again. Dying alone or with Jaesa though, both of those options terrify me.

At least I could've been held in the tight embrace of someone who once loved me and who I once loved as I drowned to death.

Instead, I will be bringing my apprentice down with me. Ending the bright spark of her life and power before it has the chance to truly blossom into something magnificent.

I am frantically typing at the console but I cannot get a signal out to Quinn to help me with slicing and I have never been the type to be good with that sort of thing myself. Power is failing in many areas and while I cannot halt the deterioration of the ship, I can give us more time.

So I tap into the power grid and shut everything off in the areas already filled with water- but.

I take my hands away from the console and it continues shutting down systems and preserving others all on its own.

"What in the galaxy…?"

"Master, what's happening?" Jaesa looks faraway when I turn to her. "I feel…someone nearby. But also faraway. They're trying to connect to me, but the connection won't complete."

"It's alright, Jaesa. Just let it go," I soothe. "If we can get out of here, we'll find out where it's coming from, but first things first."

" _Yeah, I might be able to help with that_."

I whirl around and back away from the console as the Holo of a man appears above it.

And I know him.

His voice before, it had been directing me while Lana tracked Arkous- and I had _thought_ that it sounded familiar. But I couldn't place it.

How silly of me to forget his voice. It's been too long since the last time I watched those security feeds.

" _Just take a second to get that emergency pod primed before you can shove off_ ," he says. His holo is typing on a console on his end- and I see that he's currently accessing emergency systems.

"Theron," I whisper.

"You're…from the Republic, aren't you?" Jaesa asks. Wide-eyed with surprise.

Of course. She doesn't know him. And he is _obviously_ Republic…

" _Yup. Got a problem with a 'pub saving your life_?" he asks it in such a gloating, sort of hostile way. Subtle, but it gets the point across.

He's expecting posturing or disgust or something similar, but he's still saving us anyway.

' _Why is it that I was so afraid we'd one day meet on the battlefield and I would have to kill you?_ ' I wonder to myself. ' _It's so clear now that you're in front of me, I'd let you drag a vibroblade across my throat and thank you as I died._ '

"Thank you," I speak it with emotions clogging my throat. Things that shouldn't be expressed to a total stranger. Or someone who should _be_ a total stranger.

He won't know me. He can't. It was so long ago. I only know him because I went looking. What reason would he have had to keep up with the development of a Sith girl?

The relief of knowing I will not die and take my apprentice with me. The spark of hope that's reignited in my chest for the salvation of the Empire and all its people through me. The gratefulness that my enemy sees something worthy of saving, even as he anticipates my ire.

There's something like surprise on his face for the one moment he glances up and his holo seems to catch my eye.

" _Alright, everything's ready to go_ ," he says. His eyes rip away from mine.

And I realize I've been staring at his holo this whole time. "Thank you."

" _Yeah you said that_ ," he replies. Flippant, but still a bit bemused, I think. " _Okay, it's open, go!_ "

"Come, Jaesa!" I grasp her hand and drag her behind me with Jakarro following after us- sloshing through the thigh-high waters quite loudly. Jaesa and I settle on one of the benches and begin securing our safety harnesses as Jakarro falls into the sub and grasps a handhold along one of the walls.

The door closes and the sub is jettisoned into the depths of the sea. It has some destination already keyed in, so I leave the computer be and simply clutch Jaesa's hand in mine. Waiting for us to get there. Waiting for something else to happen to stop us from reaching safety.

But it never comes. And the tense silence between the three of us as we wait is interminable, but it does eventually end.

When it does, I find myself in yet another facility- this one blessedly not exploding nor collapsing all around us. And not underwater this time, either. Thank the stars.

"We made it," Jaesa says.

Such a simple statement, but it makes me well up with emotion.

I've had close calls before, but it has never been that close. Even with Theron assuring me that we had a way off, somehow…I felt like the whole place was going to collapse before we could reach it- that we'd drown before we could get in.

I pull Jaesa to me and squeeze her tight, receiving an embrace in equal measure in return. "We're alive."

She nods into my shoulder and my hand pets her hair absent-mindedly.

I didn't lose her, I didn't die. Our legacies and our mission will go on.

We even managed to save someone else.

Today has been a good day.

So we detangle ourselves and mercifully, Jakarro seems to understand that commenting on our moment of emotional fragility isn't wise.

Unfortunately, his droid does not hold his wisdom.

"Well, isn't that sweet!" he exclaims, sounding genuinely delighted. "I've never seen a Sith and their Apprentice so close before. It reminds me of…"

I stop paying attention at about that point. If he had sounded deriding rather than delighted, I would've broken that piece of scrap and offered to buy Jakarro a new droid. As it is, I can stand to tune out a chattering machine that is reliving his glory days as a Queen's royal translator.

He even says a few things I find most interesting before we arrive in the room just down the corridor from where we landed. And we all know this is where we are to go because we can see the door open- and all the others were sealed at the ends of their own corridors.

Very dramatic, like a Sith, but also very understated, like a spy. Ah, I suppose Lana is here, too. I knew they were working together but I somehow didn't think they would be in the same place.

Lana is Imperial, and her new ally is Republic. I would think some caution would be shown. Suspicion. Hiding away from each other only makes sense.

But then Lana is very rational and entirely confident. If Theron attacked her from behind, he would get a rude awakening.

The thought of that makes my footsteps quicken and shorten and soon I'm nearly jogging down the hallway with Jaesa's hand in mine.

Her thoughts probe questioningly at mine and I send a sense of reassurance and giddiness.

We're alive! But also…I'm going to _see him_ _again_.

**Author's Note:**

> Send extra kudos and comments to me and I will bless you with more chapters! Because here's the thing, I now have so many stories published AND in the works that I cannot keep track of them all.
> 
> So if people send me comments every once in a while on stories I haven't updated in a bit, I may be reminded they exist and go and work on them.
> 
> Thank you for your contribution!


End file.
